Friday, September 30, 2016

The USC Dornsife/LA Times Presidential Election "Daybreak" Poll is part of the ongoing Understanding America Study: (UAS) at the University of
Southern California’s (USC) Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research, in partnership with the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics
and the Los Angeles Times.
Every day, we invite one-seventh of the members of the UAS election
panel to answer three predictive questions:
What is the percent chance that… (1) you will vote in the presidential
election? (2) you will vote for Clinton, Trump, or someone else? and
(3) Clinton, Trump or someone else will win? As their answers come in,
we update the charts daily (just after midnight) with an average of
all of the prior week’s responses. To find out more about what lies
behind the vote, each week we also ask respondents one or two extra
questions
about their preferences and values. The team responsible for the USC
Dornsife/LA Times Presidential Election Poll four years ago developed
the
successful RAND Continuous Presidential Election Poll, which was based
on the same methodology."

Clinton has been no less reckless with regard to Syria. She beat Obama to the punch in calling for Bashar al-Assad’s overthrow, she’s consistently pushed for stepped-up support for the rebels, and, as recently as April, she reiterated her call for a “no-fly zone” even though it would require massive military intervention and would almost certainly mean a confrontation with Russia....

Since U.S. foreign policy directly affects 20 times more people than
domestic – i.e. seven billion versus 322 million – then there’s no doubt
as to whom the “lesser-evilism” award goes to. It goes to Trump....

Rather
than polls, what matters at this point are politics, i.e. a sense of
the candidates’ relative ideological strengths and weaknesses. And it’s
in this regard that Clinton is more vulnerable than her backers
apparently realize.

Her speech
in Cleveland following the June 12 Orlando massacre is a good
example why. She began – inappropriately in view of the tragic
circumstances – with the usual glib shout-outs to local pols....But then came something truly bizarre:

(Hillary):“Now, the third area that demands attention is preventing
radicalization and countering efforts by ISIS and other international
terrorist networks to recruit in the United States and Europe.For
starters, it is long past time for the Saudis, the Qataris and the
Kuwaitis and others to stop their citizens from funding extremist
organizations.And they should stop supporting radical schools and
mosques around the worldthat have set too many young people on a path
towards extremism.”

Why bizarre? Simply becauseClinton has been a national figure for
two decades as First Lady, U.S. Senator, and Secretary of State, yet
this was a rare recognition that there was something wrongwith the U.S.-Saudi relationship.Otherwise, there has been almost
nothing but praise.When the State Department negotiated a record
$60-billion arms dealwith Riyadh in 2010, for instance, her officials stated
(somewhat redundantly) that the sale would benefit the Middle East“by
deepening our security relationship with a key partnerwith whom we’ve
enjoyed a solid security relationshipfor nearly seventy years.”How do you have a solid security relationship with a country that
funds extremist mosques that function as a terrorist breeding ground?

When King Abdullah died in January 2015, she and her husband put out a statement praising the Saudi monarch “for his support of efforts for peace in the
Middle East” and “the kingdom’s humanitarian efforts around the
world.”Since when do you advance the cause of peace by funding Al
Qaeda?"...

[Ed. note: The article's point is that Mrs. Clinton has been shielding a terror sponsor, the Saudis, lying to the American people about what a great friend of the US they are for at least six and a half years. And why should she be rewarded with 8 more years in the White House for this behavior? Her duplicity is formally known thanks only to a Dec. 2009 internal State Dept. memo released by Wikileaks(scroll to item 7). Separately, why is the US "friends" with a religious monarchy that publicly beheads people? Why is ISIS bad for beheading people but the Saudis aren't?]:

(continuing): "To be fair, (Mrs.) Clinton was surprisingly frank--once. In December 2009, she wrote in a State Departmentmemo[scroll to item 7]:

Trump can be counted on to hammer at such themes, and the more
he does, the more voters will want to know. Indeed, Trump followed up
her remarks in Cleveland by posting
a few hours later on Facebook: “Crooked Hillary says we must call on
Saudi Arabia and other countries to stop funding hate. I am calling on
her to immediately return the $25 million plus she got from them for the
Clinton Foundation!”

Actually, the problem is worse since, if one includes other Gulf
states such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as well
as high-ranking businessmen, the amount of Persian Gulf money flowing to
the Clinton family foundation is not $25 million, but anywhere from $51 million to $75 million.
That’s a lot of dough. So voters will want to know whether Clinton
intentionally held off criticizing the Gulf monarchies because she
wanted them to fork over as soon as she stepped down as Secretary of
State and that she is only doing so now because the money is in the bag
and there is nothing to lose.

Cetin, who
immigrated to the United States from Turkey as a child, is considered a
permanent residentor green card holder. While a permanent resident can
apply for U.S. citizenship after a certain period of time, sources tell
KING his status had not changed from green card holder to U.S. citizen.

"We don’t have a provision in state law that
allows useither county elections officials or the Secretary of State's
office to verify someone’s citizenship," explained Secretary of State
Kim Wyman. "So, we’re in this place where we want to make sure we’re
maintaining people’s confidence in the elections and the integrity of
the process, but also that we’re giving this individual, like we would
any voter, his due process. We’re moving forward, and that investigation
is really coming out of the investigation from the shootings."

The
penalty for voting as a non U.S. citizen could result in five years of
prison time or a $10,000, according to Secretary of State's Office.

"The
penalties are very serious. That’s why we want to make sure we’re very
measured, and this is why we want to make sure we’re very calm and
purposeful in how we move forward," Wyman continued. "The stakes are
very high on both sides. You want to keep the confidence level high, but
you also want to protect the voting rights of everyone."

Wyman says while it's impossible to determine an exact number, she does not believe this case points to a larger issue.

"Our
hands are kind of tied, but make no mistake, we want to make sure that
everybody has confidence that people casting ballots are eligible. This
is certainly going to be a topic at next legislation."".............................

Mr Baldwin said he called 911 on Friday night, after recognising the man he knew as “Frankie” on TV.

Police on Saturday were unable to confirm reports he had yelled a woman’s name before opening fire.

It was unclear whether he knew his victims- Sarai Lara, 16, a cancer
survivor and high school sophomore; Belinda Galde, 64, and her mother,
95-year-old Beatrice Dotson, and Shyla Martin, a 52-year-old Macy's
makeup counter employee.

Chuck Eagan, a Boeing maintenance worker, was also killed - shot while helping his wife flee the store.

Following the shooting Cetin was seen walking to a nearby interstate."...

Hawley said Cetin had been arrested for simple assault last year, but provided no further details on the case.The Seattle Times
reported that Cetin faced three domestic violence assault charges in
both Burlington and Island County, with the victim identified as Cetin's
stepfather. The newspaper reports Cetin also was arrested for drunken
driving.

Court records show Cetin was told by a judge on Dec. 29 that he was not to possess a firearm, the newspaper reported.

However, the stepfather urged the judge not to impose a no-contact order, saying his stepson was "going through a hard time."

But the Clintons were able to close the deal — while Hillary was a
Senator and right around the time of 9/11. That’s when the Saudi’s were
frantically trying to change their image. The Clintons were only too
happy to help.

(Remember her
shameless claim that Wall Street so generously rewarded her because of
her help in rebuilding NY after 9/11. Right, Hillary.)

About an hour after her faux pas — after her handlers were
undoubtedly horrified at her response, her campaign suddenly announced
that she supported the bill. She must have found some time to carefully
review the bill in between her $15 million fund raiser at George
Clooney’s home and her appearance at a rally for the $15 minimum wage,
which, depending on the day and the audience, she sometimes supports.

Now, why would she stay mum on whether she’s seen the report? Well,
from Hillary Clinton’s perspective, an answer might be a lose-lose
situation. If she did read them, then she knows what’s in those pages.
If the pages do implicate the Saudis and she pushes for release, her
Saudi friends would be very unhappy. If they don’t implicate the Saudis,
then why doesn’t she just say so? She doesn’t have to quote what’s in
them.

But maybe she never read them.

Hillary was the Senator from N.Y. in 2004, when the report was
released and should have read the 28 pages. Just like she should have
read the report on Iraq and WMDs before she voted to go to war. She
didn’t do that. So it turns out that she is not always as careful to
understand what she is voting on or supporting, after all.

Or did she skip those pages likes she skipped the Iraq War information?...

Meanwhile, the Saudis have been dumping millions on lobbying firms to
protect their interest, including hiring the Podesta Group, founded by
Hillary’s campaign chair, John Podesta and run by his brother, Tony
Podesta. All in the family.

It comes amid reports that George H.W. Bush might be voting for
Democrat Hillary Clinton in the general election. Neither George W. Bush
nor his brother, Trump primary rival Jeb Bush, have endorsed Trump in
the race. Some former Bush administration officials, like former
Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, are backing Clinton.

Others who have joined the coalition includeformer U.S. Attorney
General John Ashcroft, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, former
Treasury Secretary John Snow, former director of the Office of National
Drug Control Policy Bill Bennett, former White House political director
Matt Schlapp and former Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi.

And
so sometimes you find out about it and sometimes you don’t, but there
needs to be a coordinated effort [to stop them],” Wolf continued. “And you don’t see a coordinated effort either from the Congress or from the administration.”

Wolf told CNSNews.com that he believes special Chinese military units
are responsible for roughly 80 percent of the cyber-attacks on American
businesses, foundations and government agencies.

“The fact is, the saying was there’s two kind of companies: Those
that have been hacked and know it and those who have been hit and don’t
know it. This isn’t the first time. They just got [data on] 800,000 postal employees.”

“I don’t think the secretary [of Commerce] knew, and if they’re not
going to tell the secretary, they’re not going to tell Congress,” Wolf
said in reply to a question from CNSNews.com on whether Congress had
been notified of the security breach.

However, he pointed out that the cyber-attack on NOAA may have
affected national security because the weather agency shares a satellite
with the Pentagon and NASA.

“What may not appear important initially may be very significant as
you add it in with something else. If they were looking at what NOAA’s
doing, at rocket launches, at military maneuvers, who knows? What if
they are able to shut down the grid? What if they are able to shut down
the banking system?” he asked.

Wolf also pointed to the Oct. 20 indictment
of Xiafen “Sherry” Chen, a Chinese-born naturalized U.S. citizen and
NOAA hydrologist in Ohio who was accused of downloading “sensitive files
from the National Inventory of Dams.”

Wolf was quick to point out that the Chinese people are also victimized by their government.

“Probably more Chinese dissidents come through this office than any
office on the Hill. The Chinese people are wonderful people,
Christianity is growing dramatically, the Catholic Church is growing, so
I don’t want to criticize the Chinese people,” he added.

“They have
problems with their own government. Look at the crackdown taking place
now in Hong Kong.”

Luviano was arrested Tuesday night in Georgetown, north of Austin. He was wanted for a shooting spree early Monday that targeted at least five random drivers in Dallas and Cedar Hill. Two men – Ruben Moreno and Welton Betts – were killed.

The final blue and red figures on the right side of the chart represent
our most recent estimates of Hillary Clinton's vote (blue squares) and
Donald Trump's (red diamonds). These estimates represent weighted
averages of all responses in the prior week. The gray band is a
"95-percent confidence interval". Figures lying outside the gray band
mean that we are at least 95% confident that the candidate with the
highest percentage will win the popular vote.

Update: As of Monday September 19th, the Daybreak Poll’s charts
will reflect a change in the way we compute the "area of uncertainty"
represented by the gray band in each chart. This change means that
candidate votes that are about 5 or 6 percentage points apart will be
shown to be statistically significant (depending on sample size and how
much variation there is in the voting). Our previous calculations
required an interval of +/5.5 percentage points for significance in our
election forecast, which we have determined was too conservative. We
have adjusted the interval in the charts, and in the data provided in
the poll’s csv files accordingly."

"An ISIS fighter who calls for jihad in a new online video was trained in
counterterrorism tactics on American soil, in a program run by the
United States, officials tell CNN.

The
video features a former police commander from Tajikistan named Col.
Gulmurod Khalimov. He appears in black ISIS garb with a sniper rifleand
a bandolier of ammunition. He says in the video that he participated in
programs on U.S. soil three times, at least one of which was in
Louisiana.

Then, in the most
chilling part of the 10-minute video, he looks directly into the camera
and says, "God willing, we will find your towns, we will come to your
homes, and we will kill you."

He
then demonstrates his dexterity with a sniper rifle by blowing apart a
tomato from a distance of perhaps 25 yards. The scene is played in slow
motion.

The
American program in which Khalimov participated is designed to teach
tactics used by police and military unitsagainst terrorists by
countries that cooperate with the United States on security matters. But
now experts are concerned that this defector has brought ISIS not only a
propaganda victory, but also an insider's knowledge of the playbook the
United States is using in the fight against ISIS.

"That
is a dangerous capability," said former Army intelligence officer
Michael Breen. "It's never a good thing to have senior counterterrorism
people become terrorists."

"It
sounds like he was involved in defending sensitive people and sensitive
targets," said Breen, who is now with the Truman Project in Washington.
"He knows how to plan counterterrorism operations. So he knows how the
people who protect a high-value target will be thinking; he knows how
people who protect an embassy would be thinking."

Former
Army sniper Paul Scharre, now with the Center for a New American
Security, said Khalimov could not only help train other ISIS fighters in
tactics, but also serve as a recruiter for the group.

"They're obviously trying to draw in recruits" with the video, he said.

Khalimov
was an officer of the primary counterterrorism unit which responds to
terrorist threats in Tajikistan, a State Department official said, so he
and other members of his unit were recommended for the program by the
Tajik government.

But Breen, who has
also participated in training sessions overseas, said building
counterterrorism partners requires a necessary leap of faith. "There's
absolutely no way to beat an opponent like the Islamic State, without
training a lot of people," he said. "That's a core of our strategy."......

The US political class compulsively floods the US with persons from terror countries, even puts them in US military environments throughout the country and gives them the best US taxpayer funded military training so they can kill us real good:

In
the run-up to the Hofstra presidential debate, the Clinton campaign mounted a concerted effort to make fact-checking the centerpiece of the
event. Campaign manager Robby Mook argued that "it’s unfair to ask that
Hillary Clinton both play traffic cop
with Trump, make sure that his lies are corrected, and also to present
her vision for what she wants to do for the American people." Mook said
that if Trump “lied,” it was moderator Lester Holt’s responsibility to
point that out."...

Overall,
Carter kept Reagan on the defensive, and the president probably won on
points.However, Reagan’s affability and easy manner wore well against
Carter’s stern lecturing.Reagan did not come off as the cartoonish,
conservative cowboy of Democratic talking points. The Lowell Sun
observed, “Ronald Reagan had not self-destructed. He had not made any
ill-advised statements that were clearly foolish, as Carter had hoped.
Reagan appeared calm under Carter’s attack. With his polished stage
manner, he went a long way in presenting himself as presidential
timber.” Many Americans agreed. A Gallup poll two days before the debate
showed Reagan trailing Carter 39% to 47%. A week later, Reagan won the election 51% to 41%.

"Hillary Clinton’ssignature project as Secretary of State – the
“regime change" in Libya– is now sliding from the tragic to the
tragicomic as her successors in the Obama administration adopt
increasingly desperate strategies for imposing some kind of order on the
once-prosperous North African country torn by civil war since Clinton
pushed for the overthrow and murder of longtime Libyan ruler Muammar
Gaddafi in 2011.

So,
we can now look at the consequences and costs of the past dozen years
under the spell of neocon/liberal-hawk “regime change” strategies.
According to many estimates, the death toll in Iraq, Syria and Libya has
exceeded one million with several million more refugees flooding into –
and stretching the resources – of fragile Mideast countries.

Hundreds
of thousands of other refugees and migrants have fled to Europe,
putting major strains on the Continent’s social structures already
stressed by the severe recession that followed the 2008 Wall Street
crash. Even without the refugee crisis, Greece and other southern
European countries would be struggling to meet their citizens’ needs.

And, as Europe struggles, the export markets of
China are squeezed, spreading economic instability to that crucial
economy and, with its market shocks, the reverberations rumbling back to
the United States, too.We now see the human tragedies of
neocon/liberal-hawk ideologies captured in the suffering of the Syrians
and other refugees flooding Europe and the death of children drowning as
their desperate families flee the chaos created by “regime change.” But
will the neocon/liberal-hawk grip on Official Washington finally be
broken? Will a debate even be allowed about the dangers of “regime
change” prescriptions in the future?Not if the likes of The
Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt have anything to say about it. The truth is
that Hiatt and other neocons retain their dominance of the mainstream
U.S. news media, so all that one can expect from the various MSM outlets
is more neocon propaganda,blaming the chaos not on their policy of
“regime change” but on the failure to undertake even more “regime
change.”

The one hope is that many Americans will not be fooled
this time and that a belated “realism” will finally return to U.S.
geopolitical strategies that will look for obtainable compromises to
restore some political order to places such as Syria, Libya and Ukraine.
Rather than more and more tough-guy/gal confrontations, maybe there
will finally be some serious efforts at reconciliation.